Jimmy wrote:I had spaghetti and meatballs tonight.
I made meatballs and marinara yesterday, too. I've been having tons of problems with my back but just couldn't stay in bed anymore. (Brian hurt his back and cracked a vertebrae so he's going to be getting that same procedure on his back that I was supposed to have last year where they seal it with medical cement; supposed to be tomorrow but his primary doc wanted him off his blood thinner for a couple of days even though his cardio man said it was unnecessary. So now he has to suffer for another week, poor thing. He went to the doctors today and has lost 22 lbs. in the three weeks since he fell on his back. He's in such pain that he hasn't been eating very much.) Anyway, I moved around slowly and things took me almost all afternoon but the results were outstanding. Brian said the smell upstairs drove him crazy all afternoon, and he was able to come down to eat when all was ready.
I rarely make meatballs but rather meat sauce but had been thinking of and planning on meatballs for over a week. I had some fresh ground round and made the meatballs differently than I'd ever done, even putting a half a cup of imported Parmesan in the meatball mix. When I browned my test meatball, I was blown away by how good they were -- all I had to add was some more salt. Like you do sometimes, Jimmy, I browned them first on the stove and then finished cooking them in the oven.
Meanwhile, I made a big pot of marinara using three big cans of whole San Marzano tomatoes that I crushed up in the pan to use (I don't like canned crushed tomatoes and I don't like the texture if I zap those or whole tomatoes in the Cuisinart). I didn't have any pancetta, so I started my sauce with chopped bacon in the fond from browning the meatballs. I had a nice bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon open so I used that in my sauce, too, and added more along the way to thin it as the marinara cooked and got thicker. When it needed some salt, I added some Better Than Bouillon beef base to the sauce to add a bit more flavor along with the salt. I swear, my sauce came out better than it ever had, too.
After it cooked a couple of hours, I added the meatballs to the sauce and cooked them about another hour. I swear, it took me forever 'cause I was moving around so slow (and had no Brian to help me!) but the meal was absolutely perfect. I had some homegrown butter lettuce that I snipped from the garden, along with a chopped tomato, some fresh mozzarella, homegrown basil and made a nice mustardy vinaigrette. The only thing missing was some garlic bread but we're eating so little, it would've been too much. My brother's wife had dropped off a big pan of fudge earlier in the day so we had a couple pieces for dessert.
I had a meatball for lunch today and Brian had a repeat tonight for dinner (I wasn't hungry). As usual with anything with tomato sauce, it was even better today. Everything came out so good that I jotted down what I did last night so I'd remember next time -- I'm famous for forgetting what the heck I did when cooking, as you tend to do when you're throwing things together...
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